MAGAZINE ARCHIVES

Edition: December 28, 2008

Cover Story

For India Inc. terror cover was the priority of the insurance industry ever since the Mumbai serial car bomb blasts of March 12, 1993, that severely damaged the Bombay Stock Exchange building. Now, India Inc. is scurrying to buy fresh terror cover even while others rush to augment their terror policies in the wake of 26/11 attacks. Nitya Varadarajan reports.

The Mumbai terror attacks punctured business sentiment already deflated by a spreading slowdown. The economic stimulus now needed is not just of liquidity but of foolproof security and targeted expenditure.

The true cost of terror is impossible to comprehend or calculate. Yet, making an effort to understand it is important to prepare for the job of prevention and repair that lies ahead. This is exactly what we have attempted in our cover story. Our cover package goes beyond just cost assessment and evaluates our responses and remedies.

Demerged: By Ahmedabad-based textiles conglomerate Arvind, its branded apparel and retail businesses into two separate companies as part of its plan to raise funds later. Both the demerged companies will become subsidiaries of the company. Arvind’s branded apparel business will be merged with Arvind Lifestyle Brands and its discount store chain Mega Mart with Arvind Retail. The demeger will come into effect from April 2009.

What would you give for a shot at US major league Baseball—an arm perhaps? Well, that’s exactly what Rinku Singh, 20, and Dinesh Patel, 19, gave at a competition organised in India—the Million-dollar Arm contest.

A first-of-its-kind study of the wine market in India shows that 65 per cent of the nation’s wine consumers live in two cities—Delhi and Mumbai—yet the Rs 300-crore industry is growing at 25 per cent. Dhiman Chattopadhyay goes into the details.

India is in the grip of a slowdown and at a time when virtually every sector is cutting down on hirings, insurance seems to be standing its ground. What’s more, the Mumbai terror attack, and the ones before it, will only increase the demand for insurance. Manu Kaushik reports.